Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The hospital system is currently operating at close to full capacity. The number of patients attending Emergency Departments continues to increase year on year, with approximately 1.3 million attendances in 2018, up 3.5% on 2017. This reflects increasing demand for unscheduled care, especially by patients in the 75 and over age group.

For the first five months of 2019, the number of patients attending hospital EDs increased by 4.9%, and the number of ED admissions increased by 3.3% compared to the same period last year. Despite the significant increase in demand, our health services have managed better for the first five months of 2019 than in the previous year, and the numbers of patients waiting on trolleys nationally were 6.8% lower than the same period last year.

With regard to the numbers of presentations at the emergency department of Mayo University Hospital, I have asked the HSE to respond to the Deputy directly with the requested information.